Emma’s story

Emma was born in 1996 and, when this book was written in 2003, she was seven-years-old. She lives with her mother (Anne), her father (Mike) and older sister (Julia) in a village in the north of Scotland with a population of just under 1,000. She currently attends the local primary school where she is in her third year of compulsory schooling.

Emma’s care and education, from birth to seven years

Mike works at the local fishery, which can involve long hours, Anne works full time at the village library. They are not well off, but they describe themselves as ‘comfortable’. Mike’s salary of £18,500 (€26,455) per annum is below the national average of £22,204 (€31,752). Anne earns £12,000 (€17,160 per annum) working full-time as a librarian assistant. This income is supplemented by the UK-wide universal Child Benefit, and with two children this works out as an annual amount of £1,393.60 (€1,993). Because of the level of their joint income, the family is not entitled to either the WFTC or the CCTC.

At the age of seven, Emma has already experienced a number of different care and education services. For the first two years of her life, she stayed at home. Initially, she was cared for by her mother, who had left the labour market after Julia was born. However, Anne decided to go back to work part time when Emma was around six months old, so her grandmother, who lived in the same village, looked after her and her sister Julia in the mornings while Anne worked.

When Emma was two years old her mother decided to return to working full time at the library and felt it would be unfair to rely on Emma’s grandmother for the whole day. Instead, they agreed that Emma would go into a private day nursery in the mornings. (The nursery had opened only a year before, and Anne knew that they were lucky to get a place as daycare provision in rural areas can be difficult to secure.) In the afternoons, Emma would be looked after by her grandmother, as would Julia, now five, who had started compulsory school that year.